This invention relates to an industrial robot for mounting on a lathe.
It is now common for industrial robots to be used to effect the exchange of tools and workpieces in machine tools automatically. To service a lathe, which is one type of machine tool, the original practice was to provide a single industrial robot and have the robot serve a plurality of the lathes. In order to raise the efficiency of the manufacturing operation, however, it is now common practice to provide an industrial robot for each lathe in the factory and have each robot service solely its mate. One problem with the conventional industrial robot, however, is the large area required for installation. Another is that a large number of articulations or degrees of freedom are needed in order to perform a full range of services for the lathe. Such a robot has a complex construction and is high in cost.